Bismarck weekly tribune., 1887-09-30
Grand Forks and the Valley.

1t is clear enough from the preface to
this report that Grand Forks as a town is
located in promised land" General
Loring, long in the service of the khedive
OF Egypt, called it the Nile of America
Professor Denton, the Boston geologist,
said it was the residue Of the sediment of
a mighty lake that once covered all this
northern country. Henry Ward Beeeher,
the greatest intellectual force this country
has ever produced, in one of his prophetic
thanksgiving sermons, said that the Red
River Valley of the North would be more
to the United States than the Mississippi
valley is to-day; that the bracing climate
Of that latitude would breed men-not
tramps. And it may be added, a race that
will be the flower of American manhood.
1t may be as the Germans say that luck
makes pluck, and the people who settle
this country being lucky in soil and eli
mate will raise plucky sons, and where
there is pluck there will be great produc-
ton and great cities. At present the far
mer's produce is the mainstay of Grand
Forks, but there is in sight an industry
that will tell wonderfully on the growth of
the Forks during the life of the present
generation. 1t is the lumber interest. The
Grandins and the great lumberman,
Walker Of Minneapolis, have each mill
through the valley reminds one of the
antl-slayery rhyme so aptly spoken by
Daniel S. Dickinson of New York:
It wired in and it wired out,
Leaving the people still in doubt,
Whether the snake that made that track
NJ hoo
Walkers mill is one OF the best in the
United States-Mr. Walker himself says
better in its equipment than any in Mime
apOliS 1t has capacity in twenty-fnur
hours of 100000 feet of lumber. The cost
of the mill with its companion, planning
mill, and the booms was in round figures
half q million dollars. Mr.. Walker owns
river that empties into the Red River of
the North at Grand Forks and down that
river to the Forks the logs must
come and be sawed into lumber and dis
tributed over North Dakota. On the Red
Lake Indian reservation. that congress will
million feet of lumber. All this lumber
must be tloated down the Red
Lake river to Grand Forks and its manu-
facture will necessarily build up an indus
try that will itself support a good town.
The big Walker mill, this year, will turn
OUT 1Orty million feet, and While that is
a considerable lie quantity Of lumber it would
take long time at that rate to use up the
pine on the reservation. 1t would take
more than seven years to manufacture
Walkers own three hundred million. Sup
pose Walkers mill is duplicated five times
and we call the product Of the same two
hundred million feet, how long would it take
to saw up the six thousand million feet? Ex-
actly thirty years! If each and every
thousand feet is worth ten dollars, the
total annual production would be two mil
lion dollars and in thirty years sixty mil
lions. But it will be all consumed in less
than thirty years and the average produc-
ton annually will be greater than two hun
dred million feet and the proceeds there
from more than ten dollars thousand or
two million dollars year. The minimum
figures, however, are sufficient to sub
stantiate the claim set up for the lucky
city.